Chapter 3: The Mahout's Craft / His Beloved Bull Elephant
Late-morning sunlight poured over the yard of the Si Satchanalai timber camp, turning the sawdust scattered across the ground a pale gold. The scents of fresh sap, sweat, and cooking fires from the workers' kitchen mingled in the air. Axes struck wood in steady rhythm, saws rasped back and forth, and elephants trumpeted in deep bursts, as if the entire camp were breathing.
Kham stood beside Ming near a bamboo shed. His empty stomach, unfed for several days, rumbled so loudly that nearby workers turned to look. His clothes were still stained with mud from the trek through the forest, but there was no weariness left in his eyes. Only ambition held his body upright.
A large, powerfully built man approached and stopped in front of them. He wore a short-sleeved indigo shirt and a pha khao ma tied around his waist. Sun and sawdust had darkened his face, and his sharp eyes swept over the two boys from head to toe.
"You here looking for work, or looking for a place to die?"
Kham immediately thrust out his chest.
"Looking for work. My name's Kham, and this is Ming. We can do any kind of hard work."
The man gave a low chuckle.
"What does 'any kind' mean to you? Can you carry timber? Know how to saw? How far into the deep forest have you been?"
"I can carry. Never used a saw, but I can learn. I walked through the forest for seven days to get here."
The big man paused briefly at that answer. He glanced at the two boys' tattered sandals and the scratches covering their legs, then turned toward the log-hauling yard.
"Then go prove yourself. We happen to be short a few log haulers."
Ming quickly agreed, and Kham followed without asking about wages even once. He knew that, right now, one meal was worth more than any promise of a monthly salary.
Hauling logs was nothing like carrying firewood home, the work he had done before. It meant competing against the weight of entire trees. Large teak logs were dragged across damp earth by elephants with ropes looped around them. The workers had to use poles to lever the logs into position, cut away branches, and shout warnings so the logs would not roll over anyone.
Kham was assigned to the rear of a log with three other workers. He had barely taken hold of a lever pole when a roar from one of the elephants shook the yard.
A massive bull elephant stood beneath a tamarind tree. It was noticeably larger than the other elephants, with long, beautifully curved tusks, one of whose tips was chipped. The chain around its front leg had been pulled taut while a middle-aged mahout tried to prod it with a hook and bellow commands.
"Saen! Lift the log, damn it! What are you standing there like an idiot for?"
Phlai Saen let out a shrill trumpet and whipped his trunk against the rope until it snapped. The nearby workers stumbled backward as one, and shouts erupted into chaos.
"Move! He's in musth!"
The mahout was knocked to the ground by the force of the elephant's thrashing. Phlai Saen lowered his head, his trunk swinging from side to side, his small bloodshot eyes fixed on the people before him. One worker grabbed a timber pole and prepared to run in, but the camp boss shouted him down.
"Don't go near him! Everyone back away!"
Kham retreated two steps with the others, but suddenly Phlai Saen turned toward the boy. He raised his trunk and sniffed the air, and his enormous body began slowly moving toward Kham.
Ming went pale.
"Kham, back up, damn you!"
Kham took one step back, but his heel caught in a rut. He fell onto the ground as Phlai Saen's shadow completely covered him. The boy's heart hammered like a war drum, yet he did not raise his pole, shout, or turn and run.
He had once seen Father Nil approach a buffalo in a frenzy. His father had never tried to outshout an animal, never stared directly into its eyes, and never let it see him act afraid. Animals did not merely fail to understand human words. They could read tone of voice, the smell of sweat, and movement far more finely than people could.
So Kham slowly set down his lever pole, raised both hands where they could be clearly seen, and lowered his gaze slightly.
"Hey... I'm not going to hurt you."
His voice was hoarse, but it did not tremble.
Phlai Saen stopped only a few paces away. His trunk reached toward Kham's head, and his hot breath blew the dust from the boy's face. Kham smelled earth, grass, and a faint coppery scent from a wound near the base of one tusk.
Kham noticed an old rope cinched around the elephant's front ankle. The skin there was scraped raw and red, with several thorns still lodged in it. Every time Phlai Saen moved, he jerked his leg and made an irritated sound.
"You're hurt, aren't you?"
Kham spoke softly, then slowly moved his hand to draw the pocketknife from his waist.
People all around him shouted for him to stop, but Kham did not look back. He cut the end of his own pha khao ma into a long strip, set down the knife, and turned his palm toward the elephant for him to sniff again.
Phlai Saen shook his head violently, but this time he did not charge.
Kham slowly crawled around to the side, careful not to cross directly in front of him. When the elephant lifted his front foot, Kham used the opportunity to inspect the old rope and pull out the thorns one by one. Each movement was slow and deliberate. His heart pounded so hard he could hear it in his ears, but he forced himself not to hurry.
The last thorn was buried deeper than the others. Kham clenched his teeth and pulled it free with dark blood. Phlai Saen gave a low cry, then pressed his trunk against Kham's shoulder. The force was so heavy that it nearly toppled him.
"All right, all right. Don't shove me around. I'm not dead yet."
Kham gave a strained laugh, though he could barely breathe. Then he wrapped the strip of cloth around the wound and slowly loosened the rope around the elephant's ankle.
The instant the rope came free, Phlai Saen stomped his foot against the ground with a thunderous crack. Then he lowered his trunk and sniffed Kham's head again. This time there was no roar, only a long, heavy breath blowing through the boy's hair.
The entire yard fell utterly silent.
The timber camp boss slowly stepped closer, staring at the scene as though he could not believe his eyes. The middle-aged mahout, still sitting on the ground in pain, even raised his hands in a wai to the sacred powers.
"He's never let anyone touch him while he's in musth before."
Kham stood, dusted off his trousers, and answered without looking back.
"He's not mean. He's just hurt."
The camp boss stared at him for a moment, then turned and ordered the workers around.
"Bring the two boys some water and rice. Then take Kham to help clean the elephant's wound."
Ming hurried over to his friend, his face a mix of relief and shock.
"Have you lost your damn mind, Kham? If he'd stepped on you just now, how was I supposed to haul your corpse back to Phrae?"
"If he were going to step on me, I wouldn't be sitting here arguing with you right now."
Ming shook his head at the answer, but clear respect had appeared in his eyes.
After eating two plates of rice, Kham was taken to the elephant pen behind the camp. Phlai Saen stood tethered beneath a bamboo roof, his ankle wound already washed with clean water and treated with herbal medicine. Kham fed him banana shoots one piece at a time. The elephant accepted them slowly, then gently touched the back of Kham's hand with his trunk.
"Saen."
Kham called him by name.
Phlai Saen shifted his ears.
"From now on, if anyone ties your legs up again, stomp them until they get the message. But don't hurt anyone who isn't involved. I don't want to have to collect your corpse or anyone else's."
The workers gathered around the pen broke into booming laughter, but no one dared laugh too loudly, because Phlai Saen was gently reaching out to curl his trunk around the boy's waist.
The camp boss approached with the same mahout as before. He looked at Phlai Saen, then at Kham.
"His regular mahout will need to rest and recover for several days. Try climbing onto his neck for me."
Kham whipped around.
"I've never been a mahout."
"But the elephant lets you near him. Not everyone starts out knowing how to ride. You start by getting the elephant to accept you."
Kham fell silent. He looked up at the elephant's broad back, then at his own hands, still marked with blood from pulling out the thorns. The dream of a large sum of money rose in his mind, but this time it contained more than money.
There was something like the feeling of meeting someone who could see him without caring whose son he was.
"If I can do it, how much will I get paid?"
The camp boss threw back his head and laughed.
"Money-grubbing kid. You're just like someone from Phrae. If you can ride him, take care of him, and keep the elephant alive, I'll pay you twice what the log haulers make. You'll get rice with every meal and a bed in the mahout's quarters."
That answer was enough.
Kham stepped up beside Phlai Saen, placed a hand gently on his trunk, and awkwardly began climbing up along his front leg. The elephant shifted, nearly sending him tumbling, but Kham held tight to the ear, clamped his knees around the neck, and made no startled sound.
"Don't be stubborn with me, Saen."
Phlai Saen rumbled deep in his throat, then slowly stepped out of the pen.
With every step, Kham saw more and more of the timber camp spread out before him. The workers who had once mocked the boy from elsewhere stopped working to watch him. Some pointed and murmured to one another; others nodded in acceptance.
Kham straightened his back, though his heart still pounded and his palms were damp with sweat. He was no longer just a new laborer. He was sitting on the back of the bull elephant no one in the entire camp dared approach.
Phlai Saen stopped in front of a huge pile of logs. The camp boss ordered him to drag one of the logs to the staging yard. Kham accepted a rope from a worker and tied it to the harness as he had seen the others do. He still did not know the rhythm of giving commands, but he remembered that an elephant was not a machine. If you controlled it with shouting alone, one day it would turn around and demand payment for all the pain.
So Kham leaned down and whispered beside the elephant's ear.
"Easy, Saen. No need to hurry. I'm right here."
Phlai Saen stepped forward, and the teak log, weighing several hundred kilograms, slowly began moving under the force of his pull. It scraped loudly along the ground. The workers on both sides hurried to clear a path. Kham gripped the rope tightly and tapped with his feet in rhythm, as he had seen the other mahouts do.
At first, the log veered to the left.
Kham shouted for him to stop at once, then jumped down to inspect the rut. He discovered that one side of the ground had collapsed because of an old hollow beneath it. If they kept dragging the log straight ahead, it could overturn and crush the workers. So he had the men bring bamboo poles to brace the ground and changed the route.
The camp boss watched with interest.
This boy did not merely know how to handle an elephant. He also read the ground and the weight of the log like someone raised in the forest trade.
Once they changed direction, Phlai Saen dragged the log smoothly all the way to the staging yard. The workers cheered. Kham jumped down from the elephant's back and laughed broadly with satisfaction. Phlai Saen reached out with his trunk, touched Kham's shoulder, and let out a deep, low call.
"Good job, Saen."
Kham placed a hand on his forehead.
"From now on, the two of us are going to make money together."
From that day on, Kham never returned to hauling logs. He was sent to assist the mahouts, learning to draw water, prepare food, wash wounds, and read Phlai Saen's every movement. What he had once thought was merely the work of an animal keeper turned out to involve far more detail than he expected. Elephants remembered people's scents and routes. They knew fear, and they knew resentment.
Kham had to wake before dawn to listen to Phlai Saen's breathing, inspect his feet, tusks, and eyes, and check his dung for anything abnormal. At first he made many mistakes and was mocked by the workers, but he never gave up. He remembered every warning and tested what he learned with his own elephant.
Ming continued hauling logs nearby. Whenever they took a meal break, he would often come sit beneath the elephant pen with Kham.
"You went from running from guns to riding elephants. Look at you."
Ming said it as he shoveled rice into his mouth.
Kham stroked Phlai Saen's trunk and laughed.
"See? I told you. If you've got strength and two hands, you can build a future."
"But just now, he used four legs."
Kham froze, then burst into helpless laughter. Phlai Saen trumpeted as if he agreed.
Several days passed. Phlai Saen began allowing Kham to ride him without struggling and obeyed Kham's calls for the first time. Everyone at the timber camp had to admit that Kham had a gift with elephants, even though Kham insisted he had no special skill. He simply understood that if a person wanted an animal to obey, he had to stop acting like someone afraid of it.
One evening, Kham led Phlai Saen back from the creek along the edge of the forest. The last rays of sunlight slipped through the treetops in dark red streaks. The elephant slowed at the mouth of a dirt path, then stopped completely and raised his trunk to scent the air.
Kham frowned.
"What is it?"
Phlai Saen did not answer. He merely took one step backward, spreading both ears wide, his eyes fixed on the line of trees that was darker than the surrounding area. Though there was no animal sound and no wind, the leaves there trembled faintly, as if someone were walking behind the bamboo thicket.
Kham looked down at the ground and saw a large footprint sunk into the damp earth. It was not an elephant's footprint, nor a tiger's, nor the footprint of any worker at the camp.
Phlai Saen rumbled in his throat and moved to shield Kham's body.
Without realizing it, the boy placed a hand on the pocketknife at his waist, then thought of his father's ritual knife, hidden in the satchel at the sleeping quarters. He still refused to believe in the forest curse, but for the first time, the confidence in his own two hands could not suppress the icy chill creeping up his spine.
Something made a faint sound from the forest.
Scritch...
Like fingernails dragging across tree bark.
Kham raised a hand and stroked Phlai Saen's neck, trying to keep his voice steady.
"Let's head back to camp, Saen."
The elephant did not move right away. He continued staring into the darkness for a long moment before turning back at the new mahout's command.
Behind them, beneath the unseen canopy, a tall, emaciated figure stood pressed against the trunk of a takian tree. Its pale eyes silently watched the backs of the boy and the bull elephant.
And that same night, Phlai Saen's trumpet rang out across the timber camp, with no one daring to approach. He was facing the deep forest, as if warning everyone that something was stepping out from a place no human should ever enter.